It is known to measure the weight of an article through the use of a transducer structure of the type incorporating electrical strain gauges connected in a Wheatstone bridge configuration. Typically, the transducer structure is electrically connected to conventional amplifier circuitry and the amplified signal then measured in order to determine the weight of the article in contact with a weighing platform or other support to which the transducer structure is secured in order to detect strain induced by the weight of the article.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,439,761 to Laimins discloses a strain gage transducer structure which is positioned immediately beneath a moving conveyor belt in order to measure the shear forces exerted by a load being transported by a conveyor belt traveling across a platform scale. U.S. Pat. No. 3,168,153 to Dinter et al. discloses a weighing system for railroad vehicles which utilizes a plurality of strain gauges in electrical connection and secured to the rail at predetermined locations in order to detect elastic deformation of the rail and thereby determine the weight of the vehicle. This system also utilizes a Wheatstone bridge configuration for the strain gauges in electrical connection with a voltage source and amplifier. Also of interest is the conveyor weighing scale of Lyons disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,927,785, the high speed weighing method and apparatus of Watson disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,192,535 and the dynamic weighing systems taught by Leonowicz in U.S. Pat. No. 3,446,299 and Le Cren in U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,488. Although applicant acknowledges the wide-spread application of structural transducers to measure the weight of an article passing over an associated platform or scale, applicant is not aware of any prior art which teaches dropping the article to be weighed onto the weighing platform so that it skips across the platform and provides for a weighing rate of up to eight articles per second at a very high level of accuracy.